Journeys on a thumb

by Cosmo Murray (Greece)

I didn't expect to find France

It’s about to turn 8am and I’m sitting wearily on the metal barrier at the side of the A16, 135 miles north of Paris. It’s a long open slip road that widens into the toll barriers and out onto the open stretches of motorway beyond. Arthur is asleep, tucked in his bag between the barrier and the bushes a few feet away. I was awake anyway, and decided that one young man instead of two might have more success with the morning drivers leaving the beach and heading south to the city. So I climbed out of my bag, braced against the first buffets of the day’s outside air, and hopped the barrier. This is where I am now, with my eyes blinking away the sleep and my thumb pointing out. Within moments, an old blue Renault indicates, jerks towards me and slows to a stop. I run over, uncertain and almost gleeful after the previous days' failures, as the window is rolled down and I begin in broken French– "Bonjour !" "Où allez-vous? Where are you going ?" "South ! Where are you going ?" "Ok. I can take you to Versailles." Versailles! It's so close to Paris. It feels so far south. It's the first thumb out of the day ! My excitement tumbles out before I realise the sudden need to tell her about Arthur, before I feel guilt at what now feels like deception and worry she’ll change her mind and drive on. "Versailles ! Fantastic. Ahh––I’m so sorry. I’ve a friend, is it still ok ?" –––––– It is day four and the journey has been bitty. We started north of London, at the side of another grey slip road under another grey sky, on our way to Rome, 1,200 miles away beneath the Mediterranean sun. For the first two days we struggled to reach the south coast of England, back and forth on long twilight dual-carriageway walks and fruitless lifts out into Essex, hopping from midnight east London underpasses to daybreak Gravesend roundabouts, cold cans of beans and hot morning pasties. Eventually, a mad Lithuanian man swept us through the green Kentish countryside to the southern port town of Dover, where he left us to our own poor decisions. Two days later, we had made our own way across the water and stumbled several sluggish miles down the northern coast of France, waiting hours to hop from roundabout to roundabout, making piecemeal progress from one small desolate beach town to the next until, last night, we gave up and walked out in search of the motorway. We needed a bit of luck, and a first-in-the-morning ride to Versailles was it. –––––– "I’m so sorry. I’ve a friend, is it still OK?" She looks me up and down, and over at the bundle behind the barrier, Arthur snug in his bag as the noise of the morning rush picks up on the road beside. She turns back to me. "Oui, OK." Yes ! I run back, hopping the fence onto the small stones scattered across the tarmac. I grab Arthur's shoulder in both hands and shake him fervently awake––“We’re going to Versailles ! Come on get up let’s go !” Eyes wide open, he extricates himself from his bag, no idea what’s happening but responding to my urgency, as we grab our things and jump back over the barrier to the waiting lady. He says a groggy bonjour as we toss our bags on the back seat and climb in to speak with our new host. She drives on, towards the toll barriers and the motorway beyond.